The Prince of Wales has supported a new children's book about absent fathers
and has recorded a Dylan Thomas poem about childhood for National Poetry Day.

The Prince of Wales has given his support to children's literature and poems about childhood on National Poetry Day.

To mark the event, the Prince has recorded one of his favourite Dylan Thomas poems, Fern Hill, and published the recording on his website. Fern Hill was first published in Horizon Magazine in 1945, and reflects upon Thomas's childhood visits to his Aunt's farm in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

The Prince said he was "very glad, if somewhat hesitant – to be able to record a reading of one of my personal favourites," adding, "I cannot help feeling this is one of the great legacies of Thomas's poetry [...] that it inspires people to appreciate the incomparable landscape of Wales."

The Prince also gave his support to a new children's book, My Daddy's Going Away, last week, contributing a personal foreword. The book, which was written by Lieutenant Colonel Christopher MacGregor during his return flight from Iraq to the UK in 2007, deals with his own experiences of going away from home and leaving loved ones behind.

"One of the reasons I wrote it", MacGregor told The Telegraph, "is that I felt my children shouldn't suffer from my service to the country and I wanted to explain my absence to them in a way they would understand." MacGregor's children were two and four years old when he wrote the book.

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After MacGregor wrote to the Prince, who supports the Combat Stress charity for those in the military, he obliged him with an introduction. "As a father, I can only too well understand the strains on family wellbeing that absence can bring", the Prince wrote, "My Daddy's Going Away should really be read by all families."